Stepmother Knows Best
by ObnoxiousSpontaneousCombustion
Summary: "You know how they say, "mother knows best"? Well Persephone seems to think that she, the stepmom, knows best. I don't care what she says; I do NOT have anger management problems." Nico's rant about his stepmother messing his with personal life.


Sometimes I really hate my stepmom. You know how they say, "mother knows best"? Well Persephone seems to think that she, the stepmom, knows best. Why she thinks that is beyond me. After all, she's the _step_mom. _Step._ Why does she care about what I'm feeling? I mean, I'm her husband's illegitimate son. I know gods are pretty screwed up and all, but come on. You'd expect her to be a little indignant, maybe even uncomfortable around me, but nooooo. Once she got over the fact that her dear husband cheated on her – and believe me, he got an earful for that – she was perfectly happy to hold civilized conversations about me… generally about my dad, flower arrangements, how annoying her mother is and my emotional issues, complete with advice on how to deal with them. (As you can see, I rarely get to pick the topic.) And it's not like she always gives the best advice. Sure, she's a goddess, but come on. She's like, the goddess of flowers, daughter of the goddess of grain. _Grain._ Seriously. What makes her think she's so smart? If she were Athena or something, then I'd be happy to take advice from her, but she's not. She's the goddess of _freaking flowers._

OK, that was mean. Flowers and grain are important, and Demeter totally deserves her throne on Olympus. But still. She may rule over all flowers, but that doesn't suddenly make her Dr. Phil! There's a reason I hate therapists. They pry into your personal life, asking you random questions you barely even know the answer to, and then ask you questions about your answer to the question you didn't know the answer to. It's like the impossible math test you didn't study for; only it directly involves you, and not stupid people with old-fashioned names who can't count their own apples or pay with a credit card.

I don't care what Persephone says. I do _not_ have anger management problems. And who does she think she is, telling me I have abandonment issues because of Bianca dying? What in Tartarus does that mean, anyway? "Abandonment issues"? I think she's just using these dumb medical terms to annoy me.

Look, I do miss Bianca. I really do. I mean, it's normal that I miss her; she was – _is_ – my sister. And yeah, sure, sometimes I get a little down about her being gone sometimes, especially when I have to deal with my aforementioned stepmother's rants alone. Bianca was always a lot more tactful than me, and would have been able to get us out of a long chat with Persephone in two seconds flat without hurting anybody's feelings. But not just that; she was a great older sister. And… she was all I had. All those years, the best we could do was relying on each other. We didn't have much choice, it's true, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Bianca was the best sister anybody could ask for.

Just because Persephone doesn't care one teaspoon about her relatives doesn't mean I'm weird or weak for missing my only full mortal – well, originally mortal – sibling. Sure, I have all my friends at camp, and I know I'm related to basically all of them in some weird, twisted way, but it's not the same as having a _real sister_. It's not _my_ fault my stepmother doesn't get that. And that certainly doesn't mean I have anger management or abandonment issues – even though I'm still not entirely sure what the second one means.

I'm sure if Persephone had her way, I'd be confiding in her, telling her all my precious secrets or, at the very least, writing in a pink flower-covered diary. But I'm not a _girl_. Guys just don't do that kind of stuff. I don't know, we just sort of deal with things in our macho, silent way without writing down our feelings or spilling out all our issues to somebody. Everybody says it's unhealthy, but it seems perfectly fine to me. If anything is unhealthy, it's letting one person with a supposed medical degree in psychology into your life, telling them all your issues and problems and secrets and stuff. That's just creepy.

And that's coming for a guy who raises the dead.

Honestly, I think she's just bored. Bored with her life, bored with the Underworld, bored with everything. And so she takes out her boredom on me. She has no kids of her own – well, none that she admits to having – and it's not like there's much to do in the Underworld. She has a garden, it's true, but there's only so much time you can spend gardening without becoming borderline crazy-plant-lady. (No offense to Demeter, who isn't crazy. Well, she is, but not nearly as crazy as her siblings.) So with no kids and very little entertainment, whom does Persephone turn her attention to? Me. Her wacko stepson whom she will not believe isn't emo. Not all Hades kids are emo, you know! You'd think she'd get that, considering the fact that she's married to the guy. But since the only one of Hades' few children she's met is me, and she thinks I have issues, I guess it's only natural that she thinks all of her husband's illegitimate children are the same way.

And by "all" I mean approximately four, including those of his Roman counterpart, as opposed to the whopping thirteen that are currently crammed into the Zeus cabin and the steadily rising number of Poseidon kids. I suppose they're making up for all those years of semi-abstinence by screwing around with double the amount of mortal women. But that's not the point. The point is, Persephone really needs to let my supposed issues be, and not constantly give advice.

When I subtly hinted to my dad that Persephone thought I had issues, he told me that he'd talk to her, and said that she was most likely just sick of being stuck in the Underworld with him.

You can tell she loves my dad though. I know it's surprising, considering how he effectively tricked her into living with him half the year, but she's grown to love him after all these centuries. And whenever someone asks her about it, she says that she respects him for making a compromise with her mother; neither of his brothers would have done that. That still doesn't make it right, of course, but it takes a lot of patience to deal with Demeter as a mother-in-law.

Anyways, the point I was trying to make was that despite what my stepmom may say, I'm not some wackjob who flips out over anything and cries himself to sleep every night because of something that happened almost two years ago. I do _not_ have issues other than your average demigod problems, and Persephone has absolutely no right to jump to conclusions just because my sister died and I like wearing black. I just miss my sister. That's all. It's normal. It's human. And I'm a human, right?

But as great of a stepmother as Persephone is, she's just not human. And because of that, she gives terrible – and I mean _terrible_ – advice.


End file.
